Sleeper
by paperbkryter
Summary: Dean gets answers, and inherits a secret. Contains spoilers for In My Time of Dying and Everybody Loves a Clown


Sam fell asleep on the way back to Bobby's. He had been going without sleep for several days, caught up in an adrenaline rush, getting by on sheer will power and a lot of caffeine. Following the harrowing ordeal with the demon, Dean's near death experience, and the loss of their father, Sam just couldn't take any more. The body overwhelmed the mind. He passed out the minute he sat down in the truck.

They were crammed into the cab of Bobby's big flatbed truck, having accepted his hospitality and the use of his spare bedroom. Dean stared moodily out the window while Bobby drove. He felt queasy, sick to his stomach. Regardless of how miraculously he'd recovered from being close to death, he was still pretty banged up and sore. His head was pounding and the nasty wound the demon had given him, along with the deep bruises from the accident, cried foul every time the truck hit a bump. Bumps were the bane of Dean Winchester's existence. The twisted mass of metal that had once been his beloved Impala made its presence known with each bump too. It rode behind them on the flatbed and the sound of it banging around back there just twisted the knife in Dean's mental anguish.

Dean Winchester wasn't a touchy feeley sort of guy, but the only thing that kept him sane during that long, painful ride, was being close to Sam. In the cramped confines of the truck the sleeping Sam had found the only comfortable position available to him. He'd slumped down and sideways on the seat between Dean and Bobby, with his cheek pressed up against his brother's shoulder. His warm, quiet presence at Dean's side, did much to soothe jangled nerves and ease a lot of grief. It was a reminder: their father was dead, but they still had each other.

He recalled a time when they were little, and John had been gone on a hunt. A nasty thunderstorm blew through the town where they'd been staying, frightening Sammy out of his wits. He'd crawled into bed with Dean and they'd huddled together for comfort, hoping their father would come home. Dean had felt Sam's small body shaking with fear as the thunder boomed loud enough to rattle the windows.

"_Don't worry, Sammy. It's just giants bowling."_

Here and there Dean spared a glance down at his brother's face. Sleep eased the tension from Sam's features, erasing the grief, and the worry and the fear. He looked his age, if not younger. Lately Dean tended to forget Sam was four years his junior. It didn't sound like a lot, but it did make a difference, especially when Sam had only recently been living the sheltered life of the average college student. He'd been apart from the tough life he'd grown up in with his father and brother. The way Dean looked at it, that took another four years from him. Sam was still just a little kid.

Sometimes Dean forgot.

"_I want you to watch out for Sammy, okay."_

"_Yeah, Dad, you know I will."_

Dean turned his gaze out the window, watching the night shrouded landscape blur past. Even in the dark he recognized landmarks. He wasn't clairvoyant, or telekinetic, nor did he have precognitive dreams, but he did have an excellent sense of direction. They were nearly back at Bobby's wrecking yard. It would soon be time to exchange one nightmarish drive for another.

His sense of direction proved true. Within a few minutes they were "home." Dean guided a still groggy Sam up the stairs to Bobby's spare bedroom and gave him a gentle shove onto the bed. There was a half-hearted protest as Dean manhandled his brother out of his jacket and shoes, but exhaustion prevented anything more. Sam was completely unconscious, sprawled face down across the bed and gently snoring, by the time Dean slipped back downstairs.

He snagged a beer from Bobby's fridge.

"Should you have that?" Bobby asked. "After all you been through?"

"Probably not."

Dean took a long pull from the bottle. Smoke from his father's pyre had irritated a throat already raw from choking on a damn ventilator. The beer took away the pain and the nasty taste of plastic tubing still lingering in his mouth. He hadn't eaten anything in the hospital. He had no idea when he'd last eaten, period. The alcohol hit his empty stomach like an out of control freight train. If he finished the whole bottle he was likely to get buzzed. Good.

"I need to borrow a car, Bobby."

Bobby raised an eyebrow at him. "A car?"

"Yes."

"Well." Lifting his hat, Bobby scratched his head. "I suppose in the mornin' we could go find something."

"Now."

There was a long pause as if Bobby were trying to figure out if he'd heard correctly. "Now?" he asked finally. "Right now? Dean, it's three a.m."

Dean polished off the beer despite his better judgment. "Yes. Now. Right now and if you won't lend me a car I'll hike into town and steal one."

It wasn't hard to figure out what Bobby was thinking. He'd known John for years, and he'd witnessed how stubborn Dean could be during the whole incident with Meg. There was no doubt in his mind that John Winchester's son would indeed hike all the way back into town and steal a car.

Without a word he turned on his heel and went over to a box hanging on the wall. Inside it were rows of pegs, and on each peg were several keys. He rummaged through them and came up with a key hanging off a loop of copper wire. This he handed over to Dean with a jerk of his head.

"Primer gray Honda, out back." He regarded his guest solemnly. "You gonna tell me what this is all about?"

Dean closed the key in his fist. "If Sam wakes up tell him I just needed to go for a drive."

"Dean," Bobby said softly. "Twenty-four hours ago you had one foot in the grave, and I'm supposed to let you drive off to God knows where without question? What would your father..."

Before he finished, Dean had turned and left the room. He knew what John would have said. He knew what John did say, and he wasn't about to share it with anyone.

"_Before he...did he say anything to you? About anything?"_

"_No. Nothing."_

Dean was just following orders.

The so-called "Honda" was Frankenstein car made up of various parts of other Japanese makes cobbled together. There was no telling what the original model had been, and primer gray was a misnomer. What bits weren't gray were primer red, and what wasn't covered in primer was swiss cheesed with rust. It ran though, and the radio worked, that's all that mattered. Dean blasted music throughout his journey. It drowned out the thoughts in his head.

It was daylight by the time he reached Salvation, but a dreary daylight to be sure. It was raining and the skies were cloudy and as dark as night. The weather suited Dean's dark mood, but didn't help either his throbbing head or the rusty Honda. The car literally groaned to a stop outside the post office. Dean hoped it would start again when it came time to leave.

He sat in the car for a long time, listening to the rain pattering off the roof and the tick-ticking of the engine as it cooled. His father's wallet sat on the dash board. Dean reached for it and flipped it open.

A picture of his mother stared out at him. She looked very young. It was a photograph Dean had never seen before. He removed it, and tucked it into a pocket.

Otherwise there was nothing unusual about the wallet's contents save for the fact the name "John Winchester" was nowhere to be found. Dean pulled everything out, searching every little nook and cranny until he found what John had told him would be there. Secreted in a fold of paper, tucked in a corner with twenty-two dollars in cash, was a key.

The Honda's driver's side door was jammed. Dean muttered curses as he crawled painfully over the center console so he could get out the passenger's door. When he slammed it shut he noticed a shower of rust fall down from beneath the car.

"Peachy."

He looked up and down the street. No one was out and about just yet but the post office lobby was open. Dean let himself in and shook the rain from his coat, shivering as the cool air inside the building met with damp skin and hair. He'd finish his business and seek out hot coffee before hitting the road again. More likely than not the Honda's heater didn't work.

Business. Dean shook his head as he walked down the row of numbered post office boxes. On the paper had been a number – 180 – and sure enough there was a box 180. The significance of the number wasn't lost on him. January, 1980, the month and year of his birth. Of course the key fit. Opening the box, Dean retrieved the envelope inside. His name was written across the front of it in a painfully familiar scrawl. His hands trembled as he put it in his pocket and locked the box again. He kept the key. The box could come in handy sometime in the future. That sort of frugality came from his father – you don't waste valuable resources.

A wave of nausea hit him at the door and for a second his vision blurred. He could feel his pulse throbbing painfully in each temple. Fumbling in his pocket he came up with a bottle of aspirin and dry swallowed two before he continued back out into the rain. Maybe the edema was gone, but the concussion remained. Dean should have been in bed, if not still hospitalized, and when he found out his wounded brother had taken off on a joyride, Sam was going to be pissed.

Dean tried the Honda's driver's side door and it opened. Apparently it would let one in, but not out. Cursing the foreign car's foibles, Dean cranked the key and managed to get it running after only two attempts. The engine ran choppily for a minute before settling into a steady, rattling hum completely unlike the roaring growl Dean was more accustomed to hearing. He turned the radio down, pulled a small flashlight from his pocket, and opened the envelope.

Inside was a piece of paper. Specifically it was a piece of paper torn from a notebook similar to John Winchester's journal, but the handwriting was definitely not John's. Dean did, however, recognize it. He'd seen it before, in Colorado, not long ago. It was Daniel Elkins' handwriting.

"What the hell?" Dean flipped the paper back and forth. Both sides were covered in Elkins' funky block printing. He checked the envelope again but it was empty.

Dean returned his attention to the journal page, and this time something caught his eye. At the end of the very last paragraph there was a list of names written down in alphabetical order. "Maxwell Miller" was one he recognized. As soon as he saw Max's name his gaze automatically went to the last name on the list. He knew it too, very well in fact.

Samuel Winchester.

A chill ran down Dean's spine, and it had nothing to do with the Honda's heater, or lack thereof. Slowly he flipped the journal page around to the beginning of the entry and began to read. The first line made him shudder.

_The enemy sleeps among us._

Elkins had figured it all out, and had written about it in his journal. Dean could only guess how his father had come to have this particular journal page, but he knew why John had taken it. If what was written here became common knowledge among other Hunters...

It also explained why John had fallen out with Daniel Elkins, and answered a lot of other questions.

"No," Dean whispered. Tears blurred his vision. "Oh, no...no..."

The sound of static on the radio caught his attention. The street lamps all around the car flickered ominously before going out completely. Dean's flashlight beam faded. A distant rumble of thunder marked the passing of the light.

"Dammit, not now!"

He heard a sound at the passenger's side door. Quickly Dean stuffed the journal page into one pocket and drew a pistol from another. The gun did not intimidate the shadowy figure standing at the Honda's side, nor did it prevent him from getting into the car. Dean cocked the gun and continued to aim it at the man who sat down beside him. The stench of sulfur filled the car. Without taking his eye, or the gun, off his potential carjacker, Dean cracked the car's window so he could breathe.

In the dull, gray light of the overcast day, the demon's eyes glowed a sickly yellow-green. The poor schmuck it inhabited not only reeked of sulfur, but of general filth. He was probably some homeless guy judging by the state of his clothing and the unkempt look of his hair and beard. The demon twisted his face into a smile, revealing a set of decaying teeth.

"You can't kill me with that," it said casually.

"No, but pointing it at you makes me feel damn good," Dean growled. "What do you want?"

"I've just dropped in to see how you were doing. Ah, and I noticed Johnny divulged his little secret as a parting gift. Lucky you."

Dean clenched his jaw. "What secret? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, come on, Dean," it purred. "Let's not play games you and I. We've gotten so close over the past few days. You kill my children, I kill you...oh, wait, there was a fourth quarter substitution. Daddy sends his regards."

So it was true.

Dean's gun hand shook and so did his voice. "Son of a bitch."

"Do you mean me, or your noble, self-sacrificing father?" The demon chuckled. "John, Marshal Hall, one wonders who will die the next time your miserable joke of a life is in jeopardy, Dean." Its yellow eyes narrowed. "And it will be in jeopardy again, mark my words."

"Get out."

It smiled at him. "Tell Sammy I said hi," it said. "I'll see him soon."

"Don't you dare," Dean hissed. "You go near him again and I'll kill you."

"With what?" it laughed. "I have your precious Colt."

"My bare hands if I have to. You just stay the hell away from him!"

The demon didn't say anything right away. It sat there with the car door half open, staring at him with a sinister expression before it replied.

"I won't have to go anywhere near your precious baby brother," it said softly as it got out of the car. "He'll come to me."

It was gone as soon as it slammed the car door, leaving behind a bumbling old vagrant who stumbled off down the sidewalk mumbling to himself.

Dean slumped back in his seat, slowly uncocking the gun. It fell from his numb fingers into the floorboards. He could hear his heart pounding rapidly in his chest and feel the burn of tears down his cheeks. A sudden burst of fury erupted in a series of swift, hard punches into the Honda's already tattered upholstery.

"_I want you to watch out for Sammy..."_

He jerked the shift into first gear.

"_Yeah, Dad, you know I will."_

The Honda shuddered away from the curb. Dean slammed the clutch down and cranked the gear shift around into second gear. He had to go. He needed to go now.

"_You're scarin' me, Dad."_

_The enemy sleeps among us. The enemy sleeps among us. The enemy..._

"_Don't be scared, Dean."_

A few miles away from Bobby's wrecking yard the Honda gave up the ghost. Dean had driven it hard on the way in from Iowa, miraculously avoiding the cops as he broke several traffic laws to get back as quickly as possible. He pushed the little Frankencar as fast as it could go until it could go no more.

It began bucking and coughing before the engine stalled out completely. Dean guided it to the side of the road, letting it coast to a stop in a cloud of dust. He debated walking the last few miles and decided he definitely wasn't up to it. After a sigh of resignation he pulled out his cell phone. There were a dozen messages in his voice mail box, all from Sam no doubt. Dean sighed as he made his call and faced the music.

Sam answered on the first ring. Dean was right. He was pissed.

"Where the hell are you?"

"About fifteen or twenty miles down the road. Car broke down. Come get me."

"You scared me to death, Dean. Where did you go?"

"I just went for a drive, didn't Bobby tell you?"

"Eventually. Why didn't you wake me up?"

"Because you were tired. Come on, Sam..."

"You shouldn't gone off alone."

"Dude, I'm fine. I went for a drive. It's no big deal."

There was a long pause.

"Yes, it is a big deal," Sam said hoarsely. "It's a big deal, okay."

Dean heard the fear then, and he was sorry. He just couldn't say it. "Whatever, Sam. Just come pick me up," he said gruffly, and hung up.

He sat down on the Honda's hood to wait. From his coat pocket he retrieved the journal page. He re-read it slowly, still not quite willing to accept the information written there as fact.

Elkins called them "Cuckoo Demons," which did not refer to their mental state.

_The "fledgling" demon then possesses the infant. It matures with its host, forming a symbiotic relationship that fuses the two into a hybrid creature neither human nor demon. They look and act human and are not affected by the usual methods we use against demons. They are impossible to exorcise, and despite being part human, very difficult to kill. Thus far, they have also all exhibited highly developed psychic abilities, which further complicates matters. _

He'd tracked down as many as he could find, and made a list.

_It's building an army. _

Dean heard the sound of an engine and looked up into the distance. A red dot appeared down the road. It was approaching fast. He carefully folded the journal page and put it away.

_John Winchester didn't take the news well._

Sam pulled up in Bobby's regular tow truck, not the flatbed. He looked a little better after getting some much needed rest, but his cheeks were flushed and he was not at all happy as he leaned out the window.

"You better be all right."

"I'm fine, Sammy." Dean got down from the hood of the car. "Turn around so we can hook this bastard up." He snorted. "If it were up to me I'd just leave it and let it rot."

Sam growled something unintelligible before following his brother's orders. He backed the truck up to the Honda's front end before getting out to give Dean a hand. "Let me," he said. "You're in no condition to be doing this crap."

"I'm _fine_, Sam." Dean went to work getting the Honda hooked up to the tow truck. "If I let you bumble your way through this the damn thing will fall off before we get a mile down the road." He cocked an eyebrow, and Sam conceded.

"Where did you go?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? I just went driving."

"You should have been in bed."

Dean bent over to pick up a couple of chains. "I just got out of a freakin' death bed. I wasn't about to..."

A stab of pain nailed him in the chest as he straightened. It was a sharp pain, and it dug deep, forcing him to drop the heavy chains and stagger backward into the Honda's front fender. He automatically clamped a hand over the spot. Sam was at his side in an instant. Dean waved him off, but as he pulled his hand away from his chest, they both saw the smear of blood. Sam went ballistic.

"That's it, get in the truck. Bobby can come back for this thing later."

"Sam, it's just a little..." Another twinge of pain made him gasp.

"I said get in the truck, dammit!"

Dean stared, somewhat surprised at the tone. He realized very quickly though that Sam was pissed, and Sam was scared, very scared.

"Fine Sammy, don't get your panties in a wad, I'm getting in the truck."

They left the Honda behind. Dean looked back at it in the side mirror, watching it grow smaller and smaller as they went further and further down the road. As soon as it was out of view he turned to look at his brother. Sam's jaw was clenched as tightly as his hands were around the wheel. He wouldn't calm down until they were back at Bobby's and Dean had his shirt off. Dean felt like a side show freak as both Sam and Bobby stood back and inspected him.

"You popped some stitches," Sam concluded.

Dean looked down at the ugly tear. It bristled with black thread save for a bloody gap near one edge of the wound where the sutures had torn through. Bobby had given a whistle when he'd seen it and the rest of the damage. Dean's chest and his entire left side were covered in ugly bruises in various stages of healing. His skin was every color of the rainbow at the moment from green, to yellow, to purple, red and black. He shrugged a little. Apparently he did look like a side show freak.

"How are you even alive?" Bobby asked quietly. "Jesus."

It wasn't the first lie Dean would tell, and it wouldn't be the last. "Just lucky I guess - ow!" He shot Sam a glare. "Stop poking at it!"

"We should go back to the hospital and have it stitched up again."

"No."

"Dean..."

"I said no. Just wrap it up tight and it'll be fine."

Sam sighed. "All right. You win, Mr. Macho."

"I'll go get the First Aid kit," Bobby said. "You'll want to clean it first."

Dean craned his neck to look at the wound and the surrounding bruises. Yeah, he was lucky, lucky enough to have a father willing to sacrifice himself to save his son.

"_I'm counting on you, Dean. You have to finish this, not for your mother, or for me, but for Sammy."_

And maybe not for just one son, but both.

"_I know you won't let me down, son."_

"...could have left a note."

Dean started. "What?" he blurted.

Sam stood in front of Bobby's desk, leaning against it with his arms crossed over his chest. "You could have told me you were going out for a drive. I woke up and you weren't there. I couldn't find Bobby. I was scared, Dean. After what happened to Dad..."

"For God's sake, I just went for a freakin' drive!"

"That's not the point!"

"If I was gonna die on you Sam, I would have done it two days ago, okay? I didn't. I'm not. I won't. So just drop it, okay. Just drop it."

Their eyes met. Dean knew there was more to say. He couldn't say what he felt, he'd always sucked at that, but he knew he had to say something.

"I wouldn't abandon you Sammy," he whispered. "You know that."

_The human family raises the demon child as one of their own, never suspecting its true nature until it is too late. _

Sam shrugged, smiling slightly"Thanks." He pushed off the desk as Bobby came in with the First Aid kit. Pulling up an overturned bucket, he sat down at Dean's side. "This is nasty."

"Hurt like hell."

_It will murder them without remorse._

"I know," Sam said softly. "I was there." His fingers were deft, his touch gentle as he cleaned the blood away. John had taught both of them field medicine along with everything else military in origin. Sam could stitch up the wound if Dean would let him. "Sorry," he said, as Dean hissed.

"That shit stings."

"Almost done."

Dean bit back a groan as Sam applied a fresh bandage and pressed the tape down firmly. He couldn't avoid the bruises. He winced in sympathy as he stole a look at Dean's face.

"Sorry, Dean, I know that probably hurt like a mother."

It had. Dean wouldn't admit it, didn't have to either. He knew his deathly pale face told Sam the whole story, not to mention the fact the kid was a mother lovin' psychic.

"I'll be all right."

Accepting the clean shirt Bobby brought him, Dean gingerly got dressed. Sam brought them both a beer. After many reassurances Sam left with Bobby to go pick up the Honda. As soon as they were gone Dean wandered out into the wrecking yard and stood surveying the battered remains of his car. Flies buzzed around the Impala as if it were rotting carcass, drawn by the blood still staining the interior. Dean wrinkled his nose in disgust. It was going to take a lot of work to put her back together.

He realized he wouldn't be alone for long. From his jeans pocket he withdrew Elkins' journal page and a lighter.

It burned quickly. Th blackened remains danced off in the wind and vanished out among the wrecked cars crowding the lot.

Dean ran his fingers over the Chevy's warped hood. The journal page was gone. Daniel Elkins and John Winchester were both dead.

"_Watch out for Sammy..."_

The secret was now his to keep.

_Of the thirty or more "cuckoos" I've discovered so far, nineteen have been "called" by the demon who created them. _

_It's building an army. _

_We have to act now, destroy them before they destroy us. I've listed all that I know of. There may be more. John Winchester didn't take the news well. I can only pray he listens to my warning._

_The enemy sleeps among us._

**-FIN-**


End file.
